Actually, the 12th October is a huge landmark date for all our diaries here because ….

*Drum Roll*

Galleros, one of the largest Christmas Biscuit Factories for miles around, opens its doors to the public for three months, allowing us to watch via their galleries the incredible processes involved in creating billions of Christmas biscuits …. BUT, even more importantly, this is the date when they put on show literally MONTHS of work in the form of their new Christmas “Belen”, or chocolate nativity scene ….

It is quite literally metres and metres of white, milk and dark chocolate depicting an entire village bustling with activity, unravelling with markets, donkeys, camels and tradesmen, with the Nativity taking pride of place and often with rivers of chocolate flowing around the houses and stalls ….

Galleros also open the first part of their display with something topical, and last year that was a life-sized chocolate effigy of Spain’s Princess Letizia …. as you can see from the text in that link, it took two craftsmen three months to make!!

People come in their thousands from all over Spain and further afield to view this extraordinary achievement – and I personally wouldn’t miss it for the world – the smell alone is absolutely divine and leaves your nose feeling sated for weeks afterwards – oh and did I mention you can leave buying your boxes of traditional Spanish Christmas Biscuits and chocolates after taking the tour?

Everyone loves this part of the world in October as the temperature is more gentle, making serious sightseeing and walking far easier – and, let’s face it, that also means that the Chocolate won’t melt ….